Just Like Ice-Cream, Professional Wrestling Has Many Flavours. By Johnny Starr

Written by Johnny Starr

Do I have any advice for anyone who is just starting in professional wrestling or is very early in their career? I get this question a lot and I have had a lot of time to think about this, since my last article….
It has been a while, and last time, I left you with my pending tag match with Vulcan as my tag team partner, but then I got thinking.

This platform isn’t about my history, I know my history, what I’ve done and haven’t done, opportunities I have had or wasted, and whether any of it means anything at all, so during my time off, I thought, this is an opportunity to use this platform to train and educate the future of this industry and pass on any knowledge I have gained. Sure, along the way we may touch on my history, for comparison to today and my topics, but I want this column to be something new wrestlers or those with more experience seeking any information, can use to better their time and the product overall.

We draw from history, and what it has taught us. Those that came before, inspire us and are still spoken of today. This is a recipe for all things in life, not just professional wrestling, but since this is a professional wrestling article, lets explore this more in that context.

So, what is the best advice that can be given to a new start or up and coming talent? Is there one answer? Is there many? I believe professional wrestling is one big recipe. A recipe of course being the compilation of many ingredients, to create a product, in our case, the product is a wrestler/character, a brand or maybe a storyline. How do we achieve this? You need to know your direction, your goal, and you need to know who your core audience is and what they enjoy. Are you wrestling for yourself? The audience at a live show? A talent scout for another company? If you know your audience, this improves your recipe for success.

What I have come to learn over the last few years, is that just like ice-cream, professional wrestling has many flavours, and some of those flavours, we may enjoy and some, we may not enjoy. So, I think it’s important to know your audience and what product they like, which may mean making some sacrifices.
We as workers often have an idea of the wrestler we want to be or emulate, based many different factors (ingredients for reference, since we are talking about recipes), but quite often I see workers doing what they want based on what they think will work or get them over, rather than what is needed for the result.
I’ve seen talent that looks the part and could wrestle rings around people but fail to get a reaction because they have no connection with the audience. On the other hand, I’ve seen talent that some would argue is a silly character or gimmick, get the loudest reaction on the night, purely based on audience connection.

If someone had told me when I first started, this would be my end game, where I am at now, as The Purest Johnny Starr, I would have said no way, I had a different direction in mind. But I’ve come to see what changes I needed to make to connect with my audience. I sacrificed what I wanted, to do what I needed, which is now funnily enough, what I want.

This leads me to some key advice. I’m a big believer that creating a character that is as close to your personal beliefs and as real as possible, is a big step in your recipe for success. For example, If you are a smaller guy hitting big power moves, and lifting other wrestlers that are much bigger, or even bumping them because that’s what you like and maybe you are wrestling for your own personal satisfaction, that is totally fine, that’s your flavour of ice cream, but if it’s not working, you may need to stop and think how real it is to the audience and if they are believing it and connecting with it. The same goes for bigger guys hitting fast paced high spots and high-flying moves, again, if this is what you want to do, go for it, but maybe if you’re lacking that connection, look at the audience perspective and what it does to the smaller guys and who can do those moves so much better based on their size and style.

Professional wrestling has evolved, and I have come to respect that everyone has their own flavour and reason for why they wrestle. But it’s important to have a goal and direction when you start.
Your recipe for that goal may consist of your role models, your wrestling style, your size, who else is on the show and what they do, but if I can give advice, I would say, have a goal, have a direction, this will make things much easier and be prepared to sacrifice things for what your goal is.